friendship Archives - Page 8 of 15 - The HerStories Project

friendship

How to Save a Friendship With Confrontation

Today we have a guest post from one of the contributors to My Other Ex: Women’s True Stories of Losing and Leaving Friends. Cheryl Suchors‘ essay for My Other Ex is called “Going Without Sugar.” It’s about the painful and confusing end to a long friendship. Her guest post today is about what happens when we put the spotlight on a friendship and confront the issues in this relationship.

Linda had disappeared. From my life, I mean. She didn’t call or email anymore. She had no time to get together when I asked. She and her husband were going through a rough patch and I knew work kept her busy. But I wasn’t happy. Tired of waiting for things to improve, I found myself in that place where the hurt of missing her had morphed into being angry enough that I began to back away from the relationship myself. Perhaps you’ve been there, too?

But good friendships take years to develop, and I didn’t want to lose this one. Rather than slink away, I decided to step up. Which meant saying something to Linda despite the fact that I’d rather get a pap smear than confront a friend.

It took a couple of weeks, but I called her, my opening lines in hand. First, I listened—quietly but not patiently—to her grumble through the latest marriage grievances. When she finally paused for breath, I jumped in. “So what’s happening with our relationship anyway?”

My heart skittered. “From my point of view,”—I carefully acknowledged mine wasn’t the only point of view—“it feels like you’ve dropped out of our friendship because of work and things with Donald. You’ve become unavailable.” I made myself say this matter-of-factly, with no heat, despite my leaping pulse.

She surprised me. “That’s true! It’s true. And it makes no sense. Right now I need more connections because he’s my best girlfriend and all my eggs are in one basket.” She went on, giving me time to breathe, and to figure out what to say next.

I said we should each figure out what we wanted from our relationship. “Let’s think about it and then we can have another conversation.” This is going well, I told myself. We’ll meet a few weeks from now so I can hang up soon and go inhale some ice cream.

She surprised me again. “Let’s do it tomorrow.”

We met for lunch. As soon as we’d ordered our grilled fish, she began. “I don’t like walks where you’re time-bound because you have to pick up your kid. And walks with your little doggie, despite how cute she is, are not my idea of walks. Your attention is too diverted. It’s like having a little kid along and then all the dog people stop and talk.”

Well, how was I supposed to get the dog walked if I didn’t bring her with me? Who could not love Juniper? And Linda chatted more with the dog people than I did. Besides, this wasn’t what we agreed to talk about anyway. Was it?

Not that it was easy, but I reined in my defensiveness. “Okay. It saves time for me to walk with Juniper and you together, but I can see what you mean.”

Linda nodded, pleased.

My turn. If she could raise annoying habits, so could I. “Often when we talk, it’s as if everything is of equal importance to you—the seed in your birdfeeder, my surgery, the conversation you had standing in line at the Post Office, your mother. I don’t like spending so much time focusing on trivia. And I feel like I have to work to squeeze my topics into the conversation.”

She looked straight at me. “Oh, you’re very good at taking care of yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I refolded my napkin. Thought about throwing it at her. Took a few breaths. “Let me ask you something. When you tell me things, do you feel heard?”

She considered. “Not always. Sometimes I feel like you’re not . . . attending.”

I had to laugh. “You feel like I squeeze my stuff in all right but don’t really pay attention to you and your stuff?” She nodded. I leaned back in my chair, grinning, and threw up my hands. “I feel exactly the same!”

Linda found this pretty funny, too. Friendships, we decided, must follow a universal formula. We each want to be, as Linda had put it, attended to. And we want it in the exact proportion to which we feel we are giving it to our friend who doesn’t, not nearly enough anyway, return our generosity.

I wasn’t finished. “Listening to you I often feel myself being sucked down this giant rat hole. I have no idea why we’re going there, I just know it’s not where I want to go and I can’t see how it’s meaningful to either of us.”

“You’re so busy all the time whirring around, so tight on time with so many balls in the air, you never have enough time. I have an associative thinking style and you have a more curt—”

“Linear!”

“Okay. Where’s the waitress anyway? I never got my cranberry juice.”

We paused to regain our equilibrium. I suggested we create a code word, something each of us could use to signal the other was doing the thing that drove her crazy.

“’Rat hole’,” I offered.

“No way. Too pejorative. Plus it only describes my end of the issue.” She thought some more. “How about ‘time/object’?”

“What on earth does that mean?”

We ping-ponged suggestions back and forth until dessert arrived. “I’ve got it!” Linda cried. Her eyebrows lifted and her eyes opened wide. “Rat-whirr!”

I tried it out. “’Rat-whirr. ‘Rat’ for you and ‘whirr’ for me. Rat-whirrrr. I love it!

But is it a verb? You’re rat-whirring again?”

Linda guffawed. I howled. “Or, no, a noun. ‘Help! I’m the victim of a ratwhirr!” We doubled over, pounding the tablecloth. “Then there’s the adjectival form. ‘This has degenerated into a most ratwhirrish conversation!”

From then on, our negotiations flowed. I agreed to leave Juniper at home on our walks. Linda agreed to keep our phone conversations shorter and more to the point. She would call more often. I would attend better when she did.

Working hard at being clear but not angry or defensive, restating the other’s position and using humor had brought us back together. “I think we’ve done a damn fine job on this friendship business,” I said. “To us!” I clinked my water glass against her juice.

“Compared to what I’m going through with el husbando, this was cake,” Linda said.

I smiled. I didn’t mention her tap-dancing right foot.

Cheryl Suchors came to writing after a career in business, and her work has mostly appeared in literary journals. At age forty-eight, she decided to climb forty-eight mountains. Her nearly finished memoir (surprisingly titled 48 Mountains) describes how hiking sustained her through cancer and the death of her hiking buddy. She lives with her husband and plants near Boston and visits her daughter, out on her own in Washington, DC, as often as possible. Cheryl posts about hiking, writing, nature and life on her blog, Go For It: One Approach to Living.

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Emily Gould’s New Novel FRIENDSHIP: A Review and Giveaway

Read my review of this much buzzed-about new novel and enter to win a copy below!

Is it a sign of impending middle age that I have grown tired of the angst and absorption of modern early adulthood? After all, I turn 40 in less than two weeks.

During its first season I was a huge fan of HBO’s “Girls.” It reminded me just enough of my own twentysomething, mid-1990s, post-college days living in crappy apartments in Boston with Wesleyan friends to tap into my Gen-X nostalgia, and yet I could also enjoy feeling smugly superior to what I perceived as this generation’s over the top narcissism and self-entitlement. (We were never that immature and self-involved, right?)

But after a while I grew impatient. More and more I wanted to slap Hannah, Marnie, and their friends and scream, Grow up!

So I gave up on these intelligent yet underachieving girls — and had long given up on “chick lit” featuring twentysomething tales of career crisis, bad boyfriends, and depressing apartments.

Then I starting hearing about Friendship: A Novel by Emily Gould. In literary circles, the buzz was everywhere. Because of the HerStories Project, I consider it my editorial duty to keep abreast of new literature featuring female friendship as a prominent theme.

But when I read the plot summary, I sighed.

Described by Amazon as “a novel about two friends learning the difference between getting older and growing up,” it tells the story of Bev Tunney and Amy Schein who “have been best friends for years; now, at thirty, they’re at a crossroads. Bev is a Midwestern striver still mourning a years-old romantic catastrophe. Amy is an East Coast princess whose luck and charm have too long allowed her to cruise through life. Bev is stuck in circumstances that would have barely passed for bohemian in her mid-twenties: temping, living with roommates, drowning in student-loan debt. Amy is still riding the tailwinds of her early success, but her habit of burning bridges is finally catching up to her. And now Bev is pregnant.
As Bev and Amy are dragged, kicking and screaming, into real adulthood, they have to face the possibility that growing up might mean growing apart.”

Then when I researched a little bit about the author, I sighed again. Emily Gould is as much a real life version of Lena Dunham as anyone that I’ve heard about. (In fact, it is rumored that the “Girls” character may be based on her.)

Emily Gould is a writer, editor, and blogger best known for baring (oversharing?) her life and soul to millions in her columns and writing (on Gawker, in the New York Times, in her own memoir) to a controversial and startling degree. According to the New York Times, “Funny, vicious and nakedly irreverent, her posts were so aggressive at times that they managed to incense even the customarily affable Jimmy Kimmel.” (In fact the character of Amy must be a thinly disguised version of Gould herself. Amy is a blogger who had “somehow snapped a high-profile job at a locally prominent gossip blog mocking New York City’s rich, powerful, corrupt, ridiculously elite.” Her former days of blogging glory are over though — it’s never quite clear why or how her fall from grace happened — and now she works at Yidster, “the third most popular online destination for cultural coverage with a modern Jewish edge.”)

Despite these concerns about the novel, I was immediately hooked when I picked it up and would recommend it highly even to soon-to-be middle-aged moms like me.

Not surprisingly, what fascinated me was its subtle and realistic depiction of female friendship and its complexity and imperfection, particularly during early adulthood, with its mix of deep love, loyalty, envy, resentment, and support.

For these two women, their friendship is the primary bond in their lives, and they depend on each other to meet their often overwhelming emotional needs. When feckless boyfriends and dead-end jobs disappoint, the best friend is there.

The book is edgy, funny, and wise when it reminds us of that time in many of our lives when we approached 30 with little to show for our struggles. (It’s worth reading just for the vivid, sharply observed details of young urban life, particularly relating to the role of technology in young people’s lives.) It is a book about what it means to be a grown up. These are two friends who learning along with — and from — each other that getting older in years is not the same as growing up.

Fans of HerStories, even those closer to middle age or retirement age than college graduation, won’t be disappointed.

Enter our giveaway to win a copy of FRIENDSHIP!

Are there other novels about friendship that you’ve recently read?

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Lifting the Heart

We have a beautiful and heartbreaking guest post today from Kerry of Winding Road. Kerry shares her story of friendship and the power of forgiveness.

The first friend I met in college has taught me the true meaning of forgiveness. She taught me this from a time and space far away though she lives in my heart and mind. She died eight years ago this coming May.

Forgiveness is one of the most liberating acts of love. I learn this regularly from small indiscretions made upon me or someone I love. However, it is the deep-rooted anger that can weigh us down in ways that we don’t always realize. Letting go of that anger and learning to forgive frees the soul to love in a greater capacity including a more encompassing love for ourselves.

I walked into yoga class and a woman walked in behind me. I know of her but am not friends with her. In fact, she conjures up strong feelings of anger, remorse, regret and sadness yet I don’t think we have ever held a conversation.

During my first week in college, I met a girl who lived across the hallway from me in my dormitory. She had an infectious laugh and smile that immediately drew me to her. We met and chatted while standing outside on the stairway of our dorm smoking cigarettes. We instantly became friends sharing similar music tastes and ideas about the world that we knew as of eighteen years old. Shortly after our freshman year began, we formed a small but tight group of friends and we all spent most of our waking moments together. She and I took psychology and philosophy classes together, ate lunch together, smoked cigarettes and studied together. She quickly became my best friend. She had the most beautiful singing voice that could bring tears to your eyes and a laugh that would make you smile from ear to ear not even knowing the joke.

The summer of our junior year of college, we rented an apartment together. We were different in many ways…she was extremely social and an exceedingly successful procrastinator while I was more reserved and one to study far in advance and then party later. Either way, we complimented each other nicely living together and our friendship remained strong. We had our ups and downs over the years but remained close. After college, I moved to South Carolina just “to get away” after a college boyfriend breakup. I then met my husband, moved to Washington, D.C., then to Atlanta, Chicago and finally back to Florida. She and I remained friends through phone calls, emails and visits when I came home for holidays because she had remained in our college town. It was shortly after college that the Patchouli wore off for me but intensified for her. I loved who she was even though we were growing apart and no matter what, each time we spoke we picked up where we left off.

One week before moving from Chicago back home to Florida where my husband and I would be living a five-minute drive from my friend, I received a phone call from another friend, J. She said, “Kerry, has anyone told you? K is dead.” My mind reeled; I heard the words yet they sounded foreign, I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. In fact, I think I laughed because I thought she must be joking, it simply wasn’t possible. After silence for what felt an eternity, I said, “No, what are you talking about, I just spoke to her, I am about to move back near her again, you must be mistaken” She slowly told me the story of how K had driven a couple of hours away to take her dog to get surgery and on the way was going to a concert before picking the dog back up and driving home. While tailgating before the concert, she and another friend were partying when K said, “my head feels scrambly” then she fell and was gone…. in an instant.

The next day I continued trying to process the information I had heard. I cried non-stop and lived in a haze. I felt her presence with me during this time as if she were comforting me. I believe the spirits of loved ones visit us and I know she visited me. I walked my dogs around the block in a delirium. It was May and spring leaves were in bloom. There was a cool breeze that rushed past me and I looked up to see some of the new blossoms fall gently in slow motion. I felt her presence then and on the walk home. I remember smiling walking back because I felt her arm around me, letting me know everything would be okay.

Three days before my scheduled move, I flew to her home town for the funeral. I met a dear friend at the airport and we drove to the viewing before the funeral the following day. I felt nothing from that point until two weeks later. I did not cry at the funeral, I felt completely emotionally constipated. I felt anger at her hippie friends that I did not know at all. They were “new” friends, not part of our solid group from college. I resented them. I overheard one or two say shameful words about her family who I doubt they ever spent time with. One started an argument over K’s items left behind; it was a ridiculous battle during a penetratingly painful time. Her family had been hospitable and loving to me during our college years when we would visit them. They became family to me over the years and I felt connected to them. I felt a small bit of the oceans of pain they held for their daughter and sister. Weeks later back home, a memorial was held for K. It was at this time that I allowed the grief to flow again from my heart and tears to spill since the first moments I heard the news.

About six months later, I became pregnant with my daughter. We had tried to get pregnant for a couple of months and while it was exciting and joyful, I fell into a depression during the first trimester. I cried a lot and slept. I decided to see a therapist because I knew there was more to my depression than pregnancy hormones. The theme of my time in therapy was how to properly handle my grief and anger; anger at the girl who had been with K when she died, anger that she allowed such a tragedy to occur, anger at her for not protecting K, and anger for disparaging K’s family during a traumatic time. My anger burned at this girl that I did not know. But it also burned at K for dying.

Years have passed and I no longer am angry at K. As selfish as I was for that feeling, I learned to accept that tragedy happens. I miss her daily. I regret that I hadn’t moved back one week earlier so that I could have seen her living one last time. I wish she had met my children. Yet, through these years, I had not let go of the anger I felt for the girl who was with her, until last week.

I was angry when I saw her and the emotions of seven years ago came rushing back. I decided at the beginning of class to declare forgiveness as my intention. Declaring an intention at the beginning of class is new to me but a powerful tool to make the most of the experience. During class, I took deep healing breaths and at first ignored her being there with me until I began taking deeper breaths and embraced that we were sharing a space. I lifted and opened my heart. I closed my eyes visualizing forgiveness. I acknowledged that it was not her fault that K was dead, that she made mistakes, had said hurtful words, and had also suffered. Standing on a block in tree pose, I slowly raised my arms, opening my branches and with eyes closed visualized my heart literally opening and anger pouring out as if it were a pressure cooker that had burst. Tears filled my eyes and a vast amount of love filled its space.

I miss my friend and always will. I see her often in people’s facial expressions, smells, songs, voices and laughter. I see her in my friends now; in the beautiful friendships I have. She lives in the days of my youth; a time of freedom and exploration. She resides in my memory, my dreams and in my heart and she reminds me to forgive, to be open, and to be free. True friendships really do last forever.

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What’s in a Name? A Request for Your Thoughts on Our Book Title

As we’ve said before, we continue to be amazed by the response to our call for submissions for our next book, “My Other Ex.” We are reading through each one carefully, as well as the responses that we’ve received so far to our Friendship Breakup survey.

We want our book to be unique. Not just an anthology, it will include women’s stories from our surveys, interviews, and responses from our blog readers. We want to present women’s own experiences with friendship loss in their own words, but we also want to dig a little deeper and try to understand why this experience impacts women so significantly through every stage of life. What is it about women’s relationships that cause such intense emotions? Why do women’s friendships end so differently than men’s?

Here’s where we’d love your help. When we were planning our first book, “The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendship,” we didn’t seek much outside input about the title, and we regret that a little. Right now we’re pleased with our book title, “My Other Ex.” But we’re not sure about our subtitle: “My Other Ex: Women’s Stories of Friendship Burnouts, Betrayals, and Breakups.” We’ve also been considering “My Other Ex: Women on Leaving and Losing Friendships.”

An intriguing and attention-grabbing title is so important for a book; it can make the difference between good sales and bad sales or between capturing the attention of an agent/editor rather than being relegated to the eternal “slush pile.”

Do you have any suggestions for us? Which title do you like better? We would absolutely welcome your own ideas!!!

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Hands-Free Friendship

In the HerStories community, one of the most popular topics of conversation has been online vs real life friendships. Both of us, and many of our contributors, have written about the value of online friendships, how they differ from “real life” ones, and discussed the importance of face-to-face quality time vs. the convenience of connecting via technology.
- We shared our slightly tongue-in-cheek tips for how to make online friendships with other moms at Scary Mommy.
- Our contributor Kate Hall shared why she considers her online friendships to be real.
- Contributor Vicky Willenberg reminded us how important the real-life interactions are, and why we should stop texting and really connect with our friends.
- I argued that online friendships are just as deep and important at Irene Levine’s friendship blog.
- And contributor Jennifer Swartvagher shared her story of how her online friendships became real life ones.
Jessica and I both recently read Rachel Macy Stafford’s new book Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!, and it inspired us to consider how we might become more hands-free, not just with our families, but with our friendships.

As much as I adore the convenient and effective pick-me-ups of a quick text to connect with a busy fellow mom friend, or a snarky Facebook message exchange with my blog pal, I must admit there is something unique and inimitable about quality time spent face-to-face with close friends. I recently enjoyed a rare impromptu afternoon getaway with two close girlfriends to the Hot Springs. We spent several hours together in the geothermal caves, soaking in the incredible, restorative hot pools. Even the drive up and back was exhilarating; we passed dark chocolate pomegranate bites back and forth and gabbed about parenting, marriage, and our careers. When I returned home to my husband and two daughters, I felt renewed.

This type of spontaneous getaway (really, how often can moms be spontaneous?) is definitely hard to come by, but when the chance for a girlfriend escape arises, one should seize it! These same two ladies and I celebrated a milestone birthday in a mountain condo last winter—for two days, it was just the three of us talking, eating, and drinking. We really did very little- we stayed up late talking after a fantastic dinner out the first night, and the next day we didn’t get dressed or leave the condo until 5:00 pm. For three moms of young children, it was heavenly.

During these early childhood parenting years, getaways are few and far between- even a regular Happy Hour may not seem feasible. Whenever possible, try to establish some rituals that are meaningful to you and your friend(s).

• Retreating somewhere beautiful—like the mountains or Hot Springs—to enjoy some solitude and outdoor time together can be rejuvenating. One of my best friends and I have a special lake that we like to walk together as often as we can.

• Exercise together. It’s so much more motivating to hit the gym or snag a lunchtime yoga class if you get to combine friend-bonding time with your fitness goals.

• Indulge in a favorite treat. My girlfriend and I celebrate fall together with the first caramel apple cider of the year at Starbucks. We have done it annually for over a decade. Another mom and I look forward to our favorite food and wine pairings at a local bistro—without our toddlers.

• Carve out a regular, purposeful meeting time Five years ago I formed a support group of sorts with other new moms. We are still meeting monthly to ask questions, brainstorm, vent, and sometimes just laugh about our lives. Our monthly “meeting” is important to all of us, and we make it a priority.

• Take what you can get. In our busy lives juggling work and family, time spend with friends can seem scarce or even impossible. A dinner together, weekend away, or even hour-long coffee with your best friend may not be manageable. So take less-than-ideal circumstances and make it work. My friend and I combine family time with friend time by having regular evening dinner-playdates—affectionately known as “Crappy Hour”—in which we take turns cooking dinner and surviving the Witching Hour with our toddlers. The kids play, the moms drink some wine, our husbands relax with a beer, and it seems to make chaotic family dinners more tolerable. And even though we don’t get to enjoy our standard soul-baring conversation with our families around, it’s better than nothing.

Sometimes all it takes to feel connected is a quick text, phone call, or Facebook message. But every so often, see if you can find time–whether it’s a half-hour coffee, a night out, or an entire weekend– to recharge your friendship batteries with a kindred spirit, with your heart open and your hands free.

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Online Friends

We are happy to share a guest post today from one of our contributors, Jennifer Swartzvagher, who blogs at Beyond the Crib. Have your online friendships ever become real life friendships?

Before the dawn of Facebook, Twitter, and texting, I longed for adult conversation during the afternoon. After wrangling a toddler and infant all morning, naptime became “me time.” Alone in the house, I looked to the computer to keep me company.

Luckily enough, there were countless other moms just like me wandering around cyberspace. We were bleary eyed after countless episodes of “The Big Comfy Couch” and “Blues Clues.”

We connected on bulletin boards tied together by a common thread. After typing in my interests, a bunch of matches were thrust at me. The options were endless. All I needed to do was find a board of like minded women and jump in. I could share as much or as little as I wanted. A lot of times, I started out slowly lurking and getting a feel for the atmosphere. Baring your soul to complete strangers can be intimidating.

Some people we meet online fabricate stories and are looking for someone to prey on. Both in life and online, we have to be careful with whom we interact. I learned the hard way how to figure out who the trolls were.

As the months went by, I found a safe place to ask questions, vent, and form friendships. Granted, I didn’t know these women “in real life,” but that didn’t make our relationships any less valid. Looking back, now that face to face interaction seems to be few and far between, these online relationships parallel the ones I maintain through Facebook.

Still, I yearned for face to face interactions. We all need friends in real life, even if our online relationships are filling that need. I had come to find that chatting online could not replace time spent with friends. Mommies need playdates too.

Online friends can’t fill all the needs that real life friends can. Online friends can’t bring you a meal during a time of need, carpool to dance class, or spend the day with you at a moments notice. I would have looked pretty silly dragging my desktop to the mall for a day of girl talk and shopping.

I searched the internet and started to hook up with a few local mommy groups. Some groups which required more face to face over virtual didn’t work into my busy life as I juggled 4, 5, or 6 kids. Finally, I found a local mommy bulletin board. We may live 45 minutes or even an hour away from each other, but we were local enough to share a common bond. The relationships could stay strictly online or develop in the real world.

A little guarded at first, I dipped my toes in gradually. While being local was a plus, I wanted to make sure that I protected my privacy and my emotions to ensure I wouldn’t get hurt.

It didn’t take long for me to jump in, feet first. Girls Night Out and breakfast dates followed. With our busy schedules, most of us rarely get to see each other, yet when we get together, we a chat as if we just saw each other yesterday. It is like no time has gone by.

Our local board doesn’t exist anymore, mostly due to the dawn of social media. We picked up and relocated to Facebook. Come to think of it, my original national mommy board is there too. Thanks to social media, we are all connected to each other on so many levels.

Over the years, these women have become my family. It just goes to prove that real life happens online too.

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